I want to go there and I want to eat that

wild fancies

It wasn’t enough that they’re paying me to fly upside down in planes, bounce along in a big rig down rows of sugar beet plants and fly over my handlebars while mountain biking. Okay that’s actually more than enough and all I could’ve dreamed of in landing my first big girl journalism gig.

But see, somehow I still want more. While I am at work writing about coffee shop owners crooning after hours in nun habits or covering a court case about a spurned lover and his descent into madness, I can’t help but think about baking pan au chocolat and croissants this weekend and becoming the next Julia Child.

Or I find myself casually looking up rates to attend the Iditarod and as an aside learning to become a sled dog musher. Do I have enough time in life to learn to mush sled-dogs, get adequately good at it and enter The Last Great Race? Maybe I only have time to cover it as a journalist? I suddenly wonder about taking time off, spending upwards of 15G’s and fulfilling a lifetime dream while dressed in furs worthy of a Russian czar.

And speaking of Russia, why haven’t I ridden the Trans-Siberian Railway yet? Why, why, why, why, why? I mean, all fanciful, croissant loving girls-about-town surely fantasize about steaming ahead through wintery Siberia in a historic train-car. That can’t just be me right?

I won’t wax poetic on how I have wanted wild and outlandish things my whole life, how as a child I gave serious thought to the logistics of digging my own swimming hole in our backyard, until I broke ground, saw a worm and ran. Or mused about whether I could actually jump a train, from the tracks nearby. The way I saw it I probably would’ve befriended a wolf while singing hobo hymns with a snappy if not disheveled gentleman who’d teach me railroad wisdom and share his canned beans.

Honestly if I had a nickel for every time I dreamt about croissants and the Trans-Siberian, I could’ve paid for both tickets to France and Russia easy peasy. If I expanded that notion and had a nickel for every time I’ve thought about fancy bakery and riding the rails in general, well I probably wouldn’t be having this conversation with you, because I’d be too busy tending to my grape vineyard/snooty sandwich empire in Italy and flitting to Switzerland at a moment’s notice with my husband the mustache twirler and cigar smoker.

Ah, but to dream. It is sincerely my favorite pastime. I dabble with my wild fancies so much so, that I oftentimes have sleeping dreams of places I’ve never been, doing things that only Peter Pan can do—ahem don’t you fly in your dreams—and sometimes I even howl out and thrash like a wild thing, because some otherworldly figure is trying to swoop me out of my boat and take me to his underground lair. My boyfriend becomes nearly jarred right out of his drawers when I do that and shakes me awake informing me that I was having a nightmare.

I shrug and say, “not really, though it was alarming and he almost got me.” And then I casually try and go back to bed while he looks at me suspiciously, while eyeballing my neck for suspicious marks that indicate some sort of possession.

All fanciful dreaming aside, those of you who have followed my journey as Adventuredame, know how seriously I take adventurous living, but I am in my 30’s now and it was time to become a grown-up professional. Naturally Cassandcastle the Dreamer was an obvious choice to encompass my new decade of life. As if I ever do become too old to be a dreamer well then someone or something has taken over my mind and I am not to be trusted.

This was really all to say, I am still here just more sophisticated and thirty-like. Except 30-year-old me still wants to stuff her face full of Parisian-esque sweets—although Parisians would surely turn down their noses at face-stuffing, so I promise to be more dignified when I go there—and run away on the rails.

So I guess I am not more professional, dignified or sophisticated. But I still want you all to be in the loop when I run away with my mustachioed love—for the record my love really does have a fabulous mustache that he refuses to twirl, but lets me twirl when I have a hankering—and start a bread and chocolate shop while contemplating buying a team of sled dogs.

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That’s Me

"Have you fantasized about this moment as much as I have?" That's what I am going to say when I finally introduce myself to the Parisian croissant. Also if I don't ride the Trans-Siberian Railway soon, what's my life all about?
I like food, I like travel more. Or maybe vice versa. I can never decide.